Click this link to get a print friendly worksheet and backing track for your practice.

It’s been a while, but it’s great to be back in front of the video camera.

If you’re finding it impossible and frustrating to solo over those tricky jazz standards like All The Things You Are (hint: you haven’t been the first person to drop those key changes)…

It’s probably because you aren’t doing what my new Youtube video demonstrates.

In this brand new video lesson (which includes a FREE workbook and backing track), you’re going to get the down & dirty on guide tones, and how they are an essential shortcut for easily mastering the changes of any jazz standard.

You’ll learn which notes to target over those tricky chord progressions and still get through alive and kicking to the other side.

Check out the video now and let me know what you think (remember to get that free workbook).

Get your Handy PDF Download: Click this link to get a print friendly version of all the exercises in this post for your practice.

Recently I put together a complete lesson series on the classic jazz standard ‘Stella By Starlight. Today’s post is a sneak peek of one of the lessons. Find out how to get the full series of these lessons on improvising over Stella By Starlight by clicking here.

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In this free lesson, you’re going to learn:

A neat trick for creating flashy virtuosic phrases out of material you already know.

Something I get asked about all the time by my students is:

“I’m tired of playing eighth note lines all the time! Can you give us something faster and more flashy to play?”

Here’s the thing:

You don’t need to learn anything new to be able to play faster phrases. In fact, you have everything you need at your fingertips already.

Watch the above video where I’m going to show you a neat way to manipulate the rhythms and placement of your slower licks to turn them into virtuosic sounding triplet and double time lines.

Example Of ‘Upgrading’ The Rhythm of a Lick

Here’s the example lick I used in the above video:

Example Lick – See video at 01:22

To make this into a faster line, I could simply transform the rhythms into triplets.

However, that means you won’t have enough material to fill out this chord progression anymore – you’ll need more notes to fill out the line.

But here’s the trick: delay the entry of the new faster line a few beats or even a whole bar into the chord progression, like so:

Voila! You now have a neat sounding triplet phrase to provide a bit more rhythmic variety in your soloing that still makes sense over the chord progression.

Enjoyed this post?Get your Handy PDF Download: Click this link to get a print friendly version of all the exercises in this post for your practice.

So there you have it – the ‘Rhythm Upgrade’ trick – a simple way to get far more “bang for your buck” from the lines you spend your precious time learning.

That’s it for today’s lesson – let me know what you thought of this cool rhythm trick by leaving a comment below…

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This concludes this free excerpt of my ‘Stella By Starlight Decoded’ lesson series. To get instant access to the rest of the lessons in this new series (as well as a large number of other lessons on a variety of classic jazz standards for guitar), they are all included in my revolutionary online program, the FretDojo Academy Club. Find out more about the Club here…

In 1990 the New York Times dubbed Whitfield “The Best Young Guitarist in the Business”. Later that year, Warner Bros. released his debut album The Marksman, and The Blues From Way Back is a track off this landmark recording.

4 Jazz Blues Guitar Licks

Check out a demonstration video of the 4 jazz blues guitar licks from The Blues, from Way Back below.

Then, read on for explanations on how they work and tips to get the most out of them in the woodshed.

Cool Bonus: Get access to a FREE print friendly PDF version of The Blues, from Way Back licks by Mark Whitfield, complete with notation, TAB and analysis.

Hint: Fast forward the video to the time code (in green) to get to the spot in the lesson that demonstrates each step below.

Jazz Blues Guitar Lick #1 (See video at 0:56)

You can’t get much more bluesy than this lick.

This one kicks off with a slide into the 6th of the chord, which is followed by the root – giving it that tasty major blues sound.

This is followed by one of the most important elements of jazz blues vocabulary – the slide from b3 (the ‘blues note’ in a major blues scale) to 3.

The final part of this jazz blues guitar lick outlines the C7 chord of the harmony. However, note that this lick sounds pretty cool over nearly all the changes of a jazz blueswithout transposition – meaning you can treat every chord in the blues progression as C7. You can hear me doing this when I play this lick along with the backing track in the video above.

So, experiment playing this lick over different chords in a jazz blues progression instead of only on the I7 chord.

Jazz Blues Guitar Lick #2 (See video at 1:35)

Whereas the last lick had a major blues sound, lick #2 is distinctly minor blues in its quality.

The first run in this lick is easy to understand – it’s based on a minor blues scale (1, b3, 4, b5, 5, b7).

Like lick #1, this one finishes on a triplet figure outlining a C7 arpeggio. You can also use this lick on every chord of a blues progression without transposition and it will (usually) sounds great.

Notice how the first part of the lick is tense with a double time feel, but the final phrase is a slower rhythm and more relaxed.

This is an important concept to bring into your solos – the interplay between tension and relaxation.

To give the solo this tension/relaxation interplay, Whitfield mixes traditional blues sounds with sophisticated bebop approaches. The next 2 licks are great examples of jazzbebop vocabulary at its finest.

Jazz Blues Guitar Lick #3 (See video at 2:35)

There’s a lot going on in this lick.

A chromatic scale begins the line, which then moves to a commonly used bebop pattern.

Following this, a series of various enclosures highlight key chord tones of the harmony.

To get nitpicky – there are 3 different types of enclosures in this lick. The first is a chromatic enclosure (marked Enc) – where you play a note 1 fret above and then and then 1 fret below a target tone.

The next is a diatonic enclosure (D.Enc), where you do the same but rather than playing chromatically, you base the enclosure on the diatonic scale pattern of the given harmony.

The final enclosure is known as a diatonic chromatic enclosure (D.Ch.Enc), which is a mix of the above 2 enclosure types. In this context, it gives a strong harmonic minor sound to the line, as the C# is the raised 7th of Dm.

You thought that one was complicated. Wait till you see the next one…

Jazz Blues Guitar Lick #4 (See video at 3:25)

This lick is the most advanced and can be a bit tricky to get under your fingers, but it’s well worth it.

The first bar is full of strong bebop sounds – here we have a 3 to 9 arpeggio followed by a 7b9 sound, and again we see a 4123bebop finger pattern – the same as what was used in lick #3.

Bars 2 and 3 have an interesting series of triads outlined: C – Eb – Ab – and Db.

Can you guess what’s going on here?

These triads are tritone substitutions of a I – VI – ii – V progression in the key of C – namely, C, A7, Dm, and G7. Each of them is substituted for their tritone equivalent.

This series of tritone substitutions (i.e. based on a I – VI – ii – V) is known as the ‘Ladybird’ progression – based on the closing chords of the jazz standard of the same name.

You could say the harmony is ‘elaborated’ here – instead of a straight C7 chord being outlined, a I – VI – ii- V turnaround is implemented instead to create more movement in the harmony.

Here, Whitfield is essentially thinking 1 bar ahead in the harmony. This is a technique used since the days of Charlie Christian to create a feeling of forward motion in a solo.

In summary – the harmony is elaborated, tritone substitution is applied to the elaborated harmony, all while anticipating the harmony of the following bar (phew – that was quite a mouthful).

Make sense? I hope so.

Having trouble printing out the above licks? Get a free print friendly PDF version byclicking here…

Tips For Practicing Jazz Guitar Licks

Make sure you learn the lick from memory as soon as possible – jazz should almost never be read from a page if you can avoid it.

Learn the lick in every octave and in every position on the fretboard (I use the CAGED system to navigate the fretboard).

Sing the lick as you play it on the guitar.

Play along with a backing track that is playing the chords the lick is based on (these are written above each lick).

Experiment with the lick to see if it can still sound good in other situations – e.g. if the lick is a major lick in C Major, does it work over the relative minor (Am), and vice versa?

Put on a backing track of a standard chart (e.g. a jazz blues, Autumn Leaves, All The Things You Are, etc), and practice soloing with the lick wherever you can throughout the chart.

Play the lick over and over but attempt to vary it slightly. I call this the ‘morphing’ technique. Alter the rhythms, mix up the order of notes, change the length of the lick and so on.

Conclusion

These jazz blues guitar licks are great examples of how to get a classic jazz blues sound into your solos.

Jazz blues requires a certain level of bebop vocabulary to give it the right jazz flavor, so experiment with these approaches to get that essential mix of tension and relaxation into your playing.

*Stop Press:* In an upcoming post I’ll be interviewing the man himself, Mark Whitfield, who’s going to share the story of his journey with jazz guitar as well as some tips to help aspiring players like you get more results in the woodshed.

I look forward to telling you all about it very soon – stay tuned!

Let me know what you think about today’s article on these jazz blues guitar licks by leaving a comment below…

Greg O’Rourke

BMus (Hons), ANU

Special thanks to Mark Whitfield for giving me permission to publish these excerpts on my website.

To kick off this month’s series on jazz guitar blues, you’re going to learn a complete transcription of highly acclaimed jazz guitarist Mark Whitfield’s solo from TheBlues, from Way Back: a track from his classic debut album, The Marksman(1990).

In today’s post, you’re going to learn:

The reasons why studying transcriptions is so important for any jazz guitarist

How to play the complete transcription of Mark Whitfield’s first solo from the recording of The Blues, from Way Back

A general overview of the types of approaches and concepts Whitfield uses in this solo.

Cool Bonus: Get access to a FREE print friendly PDF version of The Blues, from Way Back transcription by Mark Whitfield, complete with notation, TAB and analysis.

First, let’s have a brief discussion on why to learn a transcription in the first place…

Why Learn a Jazz Guitar Blues Transcription?

Learning transcriptions of master players is one of the most important things you can do as a jazz guitarist.

The reason?

It gives you a complete all-around jazz guitar workout.

Here’s how it works:

Usually transcriptions are tough technically, so learning a transcription is a great way to build up your technique.

You’ll learn a wealth of jazz vocabulary that fits well together, giving you plenty of new ideas to bring into your own playing.

Learning a transcription is the best way by far to train your ears – especially if you transcribe a recording from scratch.

By playing a transcription along with the original recording it was transcribed from, you’ll get a sense of how to add shape to your own solos – i.e., how to structure the rise and fall of a solo in order to tell a captivating musical story.

The last point is particularly important.

If you just learn jazz guitar licks in isolation, without listening to the lick in the context of the full solo it came from, you won’t get a well-rounded picture on how to the lick effectively as you improvise.

Here’s the thing:

Even if you end up only delving into a few licks from a transcription after you learn the full solo, these licks act as a kind of ‘trigger’ in your mind for the general vocabulary and approaches contained in the complete transcription.

So, learning a transcription is a very effective way to learn a huge amount of jazz vocabulary in a short space of time.

Tips for Learning a Transcription to Get Great Results

Here are some tips to ensure you end up getting the sounds of the transcription into your own playing when you improvise:

Memorize the transcription – don’t just read it off the page! Learn the transcription just one small phrase or even one bar at a time, and memorize it as you go. You’ll learn it faster, and assimilate the sounds into your ears much more than if you read a whole page at a time and then try to memorize a whole chunk at once. You’ll find that if you memorize as you go, you’ll memorize it much faster and more securely that way.

Listen to the video (especially Mark Whitfield’s original recording of The Blues, from Way Back). Don’t just try to emulate the notes and rhythms, but also the sound, feel and phrasing that he uses in his playing. This is all the stuff you can’t notate on a page but is one of the most important benefits of learning a transcription: learning how to shape and ‘speak’ your phrases in an authentic way.

Once you can play the transcription through, circle licks and patterns that appeal to you in the solo, and practice incorporating them into your own improvisations.

Practice improvising on a blues backing track in the style of the transcription you’ve just learned – this is a great way to bring your own original voice to the material.

One more thing:

Pay close attention is to the fingerings that I’ve given in the TAB – it matches the fingerings that I play on my video. Getting a workable fingering is one of the most crucial aspects of being able to sound fluent on your instrument.

Vocabulary Ideas Used in The Blues, from Way Back

Let’s look at some general points on the ideas Whitfield uses in his solo to create interest. Start experimenting with these in the woodshed, as they are classic jazz blues vocabulary ideas:

Sliding from b3 to 3 – this is a well-known blues cliche but Whitfield does it so much throughout the solo it helps give that classic blues sound throughout.

Harmonic Anticipation: Whitfield often anticipates a chord in his solo before it appears in the rhythm section. This is a simple way to create interest and forward motion in your playing and is a technique that’s been used since Charlie Christian. In particular, Whitfield often anticipates the I7 (C7) chord when the harmony is still on V7 (G7).

Harmonic Generalization – This means using the same lick or idea without transposing it over various key centers. This is an easy way to create tension and interest.

Alternating C Major Pentatonic/Blues and C Minor Pentatonic/Blues – using these two distinct harmonic colors is another classic blues idea that helps to keep the interest going in this solo.

Motive Repetition – Whitfield reuses a lot of phrases over and over throughout the solo in various ways – can you spot them?

Alternating between fast tension and slow relaxation – Most of the double time lines you can see in this solo are classic bebop vocabulary. The solo creates tension by using these elaborate double time lines. This tension is then released by following the double time lines with more simple pentatonic and blues lines. This helps to maintain interest, excitement, and variety.

Conclusion

As you can see, there’s a wealth of jazz vocabulary to be unearthed in The Blues, from Way Back solo by Mark Whitfield.

But we’ve only just scratched the surface…

Once you’ve learnt the whole transcription, it’s time to take some key lines and concepts out of the solo and incorporate them into your own playing in a deeper way.

That’s what part 2 of this series will be all about.

In my next upcoming post, I’m going to dig deeper into a few of the licks out of The Blues, from Way Back solo, look at how they function and give you tips on how you can incorporate them into your own playing.

I look forward to working on these with you then – stay tuned… :-)

Cheers,

Greg O’Rourke

BMus (Hons), ANU

Special thanks to Mark Whitfield for giving me the permission to publish this transcription on FretDojo.com. Find out more about Mark at his website, www.markwhitfield.com.

I wanted to share with you this week a video of a technique that I use all the time in my own practice of jazz guitar improvisation, called the ‘line morphing technique’.

This technique is an easy way to get more creative ‘juice’ out of lines that you learn or transcribe.

What ideas do YOU have for topics on jazz guitar practice you would like me to create? Let me know by leaving a comment below or emailing me at greg@fretdojo.com.

Cheers,

Greg

*New Book*: The Easy Guide To Chord Melody Guitar

I’m pleased to announce that Matt Warnock of Jazz Guitar Online and myself have spent this year co-writing a comprehensive guide on arranging chord melodies and how to master the art of chord soloing, entitled The Easy Guide To Chord Melody Guitar.

This brand new eBook is a complete A-Z guide on creating your own great sounding chord melody arrangements for trio and solo guitar situations, and you’ll also learn how to chord solo (i.e., improvise with chords) like a pro.

“Joe Pass looks like somebody’s uncle and plays guitar like nobody’s business. He’s called ‘the world’s greatest’ and often compared to Paganini for his virtuosity. There is a certain purity to his sound that makes him stand out easily from other first-rate jazz guitarists.” ~ New York Magazine, 1979

Last but certainly not the least, we now reach the last part of this 4 part series on the great chord melody players.

This guitarist impacted the jazz guitar world in a way no other player has.

Joe Pass is probably the most famous jazz chord melody player and one of the greatest and most prolific jazz guitarists of the 20th century. He was the most well-known mainstream jazz guitarist since Wes Montgomery.

Whether it was single note soloing, chord melody, solo guitar, or comping in the rhythm section, Joe was a master of all.

If you’re going to study only one chord melody guitarist in detail, choose Joe Pass – as his approaches to chord melody pretty much defined the style.

Read on to learn about his career as well as 3 classic Joe Pass chord melody licks to add to your chord melody toolkit.

Joe Pass’ Life & Career

Joe was the son of Mariano Passalacqua, a Sicilian-born steel mill worker.

On his 9th birthday, Joe received his very first guitar, a factory model bought for $17.

As early as 14, Joe was getting gigs and playing with people well beyond his years.

A few years later he unfortunately developed a heroin addiction and spent much of the 1950s in prison. Thankfully, he subsequently overcame his addiction and returned to his guitar playing in a big way.

Joe Pass ended up having a very high profile career, including long-term collaborations with Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson, as well as being a sideman to Louis Bellson, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and others.

Joe Pass’ Journey to Solo Jazz Guitar

Joe’s career took some interesting twists and turns along the way.

First, check out this rare video of a young Joe Pass, early on in his career:

As you can see in this video, Joe is playing mainly single lines only. His single line solos are classic bebop at it’s finest, principally inspired by Charlie Parker and Django Reinhardt.

I find Joe Pass’ style to be more technically demanding than that of Ed Bickert or Lenny Breau, but it’s essential to study in order to learn how to apply more stock standard chord voicings to a chord melody context.

Joe Pass Lick 1

In this first lick, you’ll see pretty standard voicings, but listen out for the skillful voice leading to and from each chord.

I hope this article has got you interested to learn more about Joe Pass’ chord melody playing, whose ideas and approaches has inspired countless guitarists – and will continue to inspire many more in the future.

*Stop Press* New Chord Melody eBook Out Now!

I’m pleased to announce that Matt Warnock of Jazz Guitar Online and myself have spent this year co-writing a comprehensive guide on arranging chord melodies and how to master the art of chord soloing, entitled The Easy Guide To Chord Melody Guitar.

This brand new eBook is a complete A-Z guide on creating your own great sounding chord melody arrangements for trio and solo guitar situations, and you’ll also learn how to chord solo (i.e., improvise with chords) like a pro.